Today's Art Work

Your child should be bringing home a painting today.  This was painted on Friday after our first art lesson about how artists use thick and thin lines.  Your child's job was to paint a pattern using both thick and thin lines.

This was our first opportunity to draw/paint with a specific learning target in mind.  Some students really wanted to paint their own ideas rather than the lines and patterns.  Please know that they do have many opportunities to draw and paint subjects of their choosing as well!

Enjoy your child's creativity which still shines through even though they were assigned a topic to paint!

The 'quiet' before the storm?  ;)

Happy Feet

Introducing our traveling mascot this year:  Happy Feet!

Happy playing Disney Infiniti at Henry's house.

Happy has started making the rounds to homes of children in our class.  He travels in a bag with a book about penguins and a journal.  In the journal, the hosts are asked to write about Happy's adventures while he is there.  Sometime the journal will include a photo (as seen above).

When Happy comes to visit, enjoy his company for a night or two and then send him back with an updated journal!  The children love to hear what Happy has been doing on his adventures away from school!

Most years our mascot gets to visit each home a second time as long as it doesn't get lost!  :)

September's Exploration Table

Each month I plan to set up a table of things to be explored.  This month I was inspired by the fall harvest and falling leaves.  On our table we had:  a dried ear of corn, fresh corn stalk with corn, cat tails, milk weed pods, cigar tree seeds, a snake skin, fall leaves, pine cones and crabapples.  Children were encouraged to take things apart, open them up, and look inside and out.  There was one large table top magnifying glass I found at a garage sale and three hand held magnifying glasses.

The 'after' photo.  I should have taken a 'before' shot!

Next month I have an activity planned that includes pumpkins.  If anyone would like to donate a small pumpkin, I will need three - four total for our activity.  Thanks!

Field Trip Chaperones

Thank you to all the parents who signed up as willing to help chaperone our trips to the theater and to the apple orchard.  We are so lucky to have so many parents volunteer!  If your name did not get drawn this time, there will be more opportunities to come!

Parents chaperoning the theater trip next Thursday, October 3rd:

Molly Pool

Kris Brockopp

Parents chaperoning the Deer Lake Apple Orchard trip on Monday October 7th:

Mr. or Mrs. Carlson

Heather Danelke

Adam Novacek

How does a Lever Work?

The children like to call their levers catapults.  Using tinker toys and (after some discussion) SOFT nerf-like toys, they experimented with how far things would go, how high they would go, and how many could go at a time!

I am so thankful our school allows time for children to 'play' each day!  Here come our next generation of scientists, thinkers, builders, creators!

What's a Lever? Kindergarten

Field Trips

We are so fortunate to get a chance to take the students on special trips away from the school ~ thanks to many who work hard for our fundraisers!

This is a reminder:  Your child has two field trip forms to return.

1.  They need a signed blue form and $2. for the trip to go to the theater.  It is due tomorrow!

2.  They need a signed gold form for the trip to the Apple Orchard.  It is due next Monday!

Quiet Time Choice

Every day after lunch our class takes 10-15 minutes for quiet time.  Each student gets to pick one of four quiet time choices.  Everyone has to be working by themselves.  There is no talking and no switching choices once we start.

Each child takes their name tag puts it in the pocket of their choice.  Right now the choices are reading, writing, coloring, or rest.  These choices can change.  Usually by October no one is using the "rest" choice anymore.  :)

Today's Quiet Choices:

Rest

Coloring

Coloring/Writing

More coloring!  

Reading

Meet Mr. Lindstrom

Gym class is always a favorite part of the day!  Mr. Lindstrom is our Physical Education teacher.  He does a great job teaching our students basic skills, healthy activities, and games that promote good sportsmanship!

Take a Break

Everyone needs to take a break now and then.  Learning in a busy Kindergarten classroom with 20 other students can be a challenge!  There are so many new rules and routines to remember.  There are so many other children to work together with and share with.

If a child is feeling anxious, upset, or is being disruptive, s/he goes to a designated spot to pull it back together.  The time away is short.  The child comes back as soon as s/he has regained calm or control.  Children may go take a break voluntarily to prevent a problem they feel may be building.

Here are our two "Take a Break" chairs:

The chair spot is meant to be quiet and calming.  

It is not a punishment but just a chance to get things under control.  

SHOES!?!

I had a parent ask a very good question today about shoes.  Here is our routine at school for shoes:  The children can wear dress shoes but I have the children put on their gym shoes as soon as they come to school. We call these their school shoes!   Otherwise they spend a LOT of time switching shoes for recess and again for gym.  So I have encouraged them to wear shoes appropriate for school right from the start.  Shoes that work on the playground, when we are doing activities in the room and work for gym.  We are very active and busy! 
 Gym shoes work best.  I hope that helps. 

Of course, IF your child's school shoes have laces, THEN

please help them practice tying!  

By the end of the year it is my goal that ALL students earn one of these:

 

Math Topic One: Sorting

Today in math class the students sorted blocks by color, shape, and thickness.  They also played a game with a partner.  For this game they had to spin a spinner made with a pencil and paper clip.  Then they had to find the item in the picture that did not belong because it was different than the others.  The game board (paper) is coming home with your child today.  You can use pennies or buttons or even scraps of paper as markers and play the game with your child tonight!

ALL the Kindies!

Today we got all the Kindergarteners from Discovery Elementary together for a Friendship Project.  Along with Ms. Grahm's class, that makes 40 children! We talked about making friends and being a good friend.  We read a story about many of the ways we are alike and different.  And then the children decorated a person-shaped puzzle piece to look like them.  We will display the puzzle on the wall outside our classroom.

Many of the children commented that they made a new friend in the other class.  They will get to see their new friend on the playground and at lunch time!

Ms. Grahm's took pictures.  I will add them to the post ASAP!

LIBRARY!

Wednesday is Library Day!  Each child was able to pick out a book from the Parkside Library this morning.  It is due back next Wednesday, but children can bring them back early if you are done and don't want them to get misplaced.  :)

Each child put the book they chose in their backpacks for safe transport.  Please send them back the same way.  If a child forgets their book at home, they will not be able to check out a new book until it is returned.

They are quite excited to show you the book they have chosen for this week!

P.S.

If your child tells you they had cauliflower today for a special snack, it is true!  Ask them why!

Be Brave!

Today we talked about what rules are important to have in the classroom.  One on our list says:

Be Brave!

You may be wondering why that is on our list.  We talked about how our brains react and keep us from learning when we fear things.  And we have lots of Hopes and Dreams to accomplish, and there is no time to waste!

Here are some examples of being brave in Kindergarten:

•  Joining a group that is playing

•  Trying to do a job even though you have never done it before

•  Keep trying when something is hard to do

•  Saying good bye to mom, dad, brother, sister

•  Asking for help if you need some

•  etc.

The complete list of our classroom rules will come home next Tuesday after we have had a chance to officially commit to them as a class.

 Look at this beautiful line on the 5th day of school!

Brave architects working together!

We focused really hard and observed our crab apple tree in the summer.

This is a REALLY HARD puzzle!  These brave Kindies worked over 20 minutes to put it together with very little help.  They never gave up!  How brave!

It is brave to work together with a new friend and agree on a tower design!

'Mazing Monday!

I was very impressed with how many school manners and routines the children remembered over the weekend!  Today we had a couple of first graders (former students) come and visit before the morning bell.  One joined in and modeled cooperative building with some of the students in the class.  Another read stories to a few children in the reading area who were having a 'Missing Mom Moment.'  It was so helpful to have these role models come back and help in our community.  It takes a village, and age doesn't matter!

Look at what a perfect line the class can make already on only the 5th day of school!!

Math Class Today!

The class is doing great on school rules and routines!  Today we added:
• Helpers doing the calendar
• 10 minute quiet time after lunch
• a math and literacy activity!

We also read about Rockets thanks to a book brought in by Kris after the children played rockets in gym class yesterday.

And... we started our penguin research thanks to a magazine brought in by Mitch!  Ask your child how penguins carry their eggs and who is in charge of watching the eggs!

Tomorrow I will add a picture of the children trying to carry 'eggs' (beanbags) like penguins.

For now here are some pictures of yesterday's work/fun with play dough!

Second verse same as the first!?

I am so proud of the students I have in my class this year. They remember so many of our routines from yesterday!  We practiced all those again and added some new ones today.

Today we worked on:
The sign for quiet
How to safely handle a scissors
How to use glue wisely
How to use playdough for free play and following directions
And we read many more stories!  Ask your child about the book our class wrote!

Pictures of afternoon choice time: